Funny point I just read.
In 1971 the NYT received a Pulitzer prize for publishing stolen Defense Department secrets, the Pentagon Papers.
By 1971 standards Putin and the Russians deserve a Pulitzer for exposing DNC corruption.
I guess I don’t see Clinton as shaking too many boots right now, or reassuring any ally either.
Best case from her is more of the same, which appears to be unraveling at the seems irrelevant Trump.
Let me try to speculate how this may look like in 2017:
“You know, I’ve talked to Vladimir Putin and that Erdogan guy (no first name, can’t pronounce it). They’re great.They’re amazing. I mean really amazing. They know how to make things work. How to make their countries work and keep them safe. How many terrorists are in Russia? (a lot actually). Vladimir knows how things work. He keeps Russia safe. I want to keep America safe. So I said, guys howzabout you look after these weird parts of Europe and keep them safe? That’s a good deal for Europe, that’s a good deal for America. We’re gonna save the American taxpayer a fortune. A massive fortune We’re gonna save the American taxpayer 500 billion (yes, for those 500 US soldiers in Estonia) and we’re gonna defeat the terrorists. I say that’s a good deal”.
Now will you excuse me while I prepare a forest hideout to hide from marauding Russian soldiers.
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Trump has a history of dealing with major businesses from across the globe. Why would you readily assume that skill set would have no level of transferability to dealing with foreign leaders? Because the choice of words he uses when talking to the American people? Your gripe isn’t with him, it’s with ingrained human nature to be pulled towards grade school level vocabulary combined with oratory Judo to evoke certain thoughts and feelings.
You can mock him as an imbecile all you want, but his resume speaks heavily to the contrary.
Edit:
Leaders and high ranking people who have rescinded their comments and apologized to Trump during the last year:
The Pope
Vincente Fox (former Mexican President)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Yeah, I don’t think he’d be nearly as bad as many do, not by a long shot.
I don’t think he’d be a good POTUS though, just not even remotely as bad as some assume.
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Agreed
(characters please)
International politics is not like running a business. International leaders do not base their decisions on rational lines - they’re pressured by their public opinions, shadowy cabals vying for power, government faction infighting, real or perceived historical grievances and irrational fears and paranoias and the list goes on. And that’s just excluding outright dictators who are far far worse.
I repeat, it’s not like running a business.
I worked in the ME for some time, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE and crazier parts of post-Soviet Asia. I’ve personally witnessed many US business executives, including CEO’s and investors worth hundreds of millions in construction and oil and gas come to ME to do business.
White guys, in their 50ies and 60ies who like to play golf and go trout fishing or whatever. They come looking to do a deal. They’re intelligent, otherwise they wouldn’t be at that station in life.
And then the locals play them for a fool, every time. Because those executives and CEOs expected a business discourse on rational principles a, “win win” scenario or something. They could not comprehend that every word uttered by the other side is a lie, that nothing in the contract will be honored, especially those finer points they thought they were driving a hard bargain negotiating over.
If the other side does not want to rob you blind outright, then there’s another catch - they’re blocking something out of irrational spite, waiting for their kickback or acting out of interests that have nothing to do with business.
And another factor - all these Americans are immediately won over and charmed by the worst sociopaths, slaveholders and strongmen. I guess they appeal to them for all traits they personally never could flaunt - whores, planes, luxury cars and every other gaudy stuff you can’t think about, not to mention the fear of their underlings.
All those church-going golf-playing Texans behave like giggling, star struck schoolgirls in front of worst Saudi scum.
And then, into this toxic mixture insert a successful real estate dealer with a short attention span who wants to do a deal. Fast.
What do you thing is gonna happen?
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Here’s a detailed analysis of Trump’s business relations with Vladimir Putin’s circle of friends and increased dependence of his business projects on Russian money.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing
And the author reiterates the point I’ve made here about the GOP platform and the meddling of Trump’s men:
This does not mean Trump is controlled by or in the pay of Russia or Putin. It can just as easily be explained by having many of his top advisors having spent years working in Putin’s orbit and being aligned with his thinking and agenda. But it is certainly no coincidence. Again, in the context of near total indifference to the platform and willingness to let party activists write it in any way they want, his team zeroed in on one fairly obscure plank to exert maximum force and it just happens to be the one most important to Putin in terms of US policy.
To put this all into perspective, if Vladimir Putin were simply the CEO of a major American corporation and there was this much money flowing in Trump’s direction, combined with this much solicitousness of Putin’s policy agenda, it would set off alarm bells galore. That is not hyperbole or exaggeration. And yet Putin is not the CEO of an American corporation. He’s the autocrat who rules a foreign state, with an increasingly hostile posture towards the United States and a substantial stockpile of nuclear weapons. The stakes involved in finding out ‘what’s going on’ as Trump might put it are quite a bit higher.
None of these people have the backing of one of the largest military fighting machines in the world though.
In case you haven’t noticed, it doesn’t matter.
“Largest military fighting machines in the world” haven’t stopped Saudis wreaking havoc in the ME and Europe through their ISIS proxies.
Why fight the US when you can manipulate them?
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In fairness, all this has happened under the obama administration.
Like Pat said, being like Obama and never having a job in your entire life outside of street organizer doesn’t make you any better at this…
Why not try a different approach?
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[quote=“countingbeans, post:622, topic:218984, full:true”]
I guess I don’t see Clinton as shaking too many boots right now, or reassuring any ally either.[/quote]
She is pretty hawkish, and the natsec community – very much including its Republican wing – generally regards her as both competent and ruthless. It is not without reason that Kagan & co. are supporting her, and some of the neocon exodus began before the rise of Trump.
But that doesn’t matter much here, because this is much more basic, much more fundamental and clear: Neither Vladimir Putin nor anybody else who thinks about these things expects Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or Ted Cruz or John McCain or John Kasich or Mitt Romney or Joe Biden or Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or anybody else who has come within ICBM range of the American Presidency to explicitly vitiate the clause on which the world order has depended since the middle of the last century. (In a similar vein, you can be assured that neither Putin nor anybody else believes that maybe Hillary Clinton doesn’t understand the fundamental structure of nuclear weapons capability in the United States, and so on and so forth. There are endless examples, and they lead inexorably to – well, you know.)
That’s it. That is dispositive of the question at hand.
Things aren’t unraveling in comparison with what we are discussing. The last politically consequential terror attack on American soil – i.e., the last attack that amounted to more than a horrible tragedy for the dead and their families – is decades in the past. If Russia is your concern, the Russian economy contracted by almost 4 percent last year, and, aggression in Georgia and Crimea notwithstanding, as of now, article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty remains untouched by the meddling fingers of Western weaklings and unchallenged by the boots of any foreign state.
But maybe if Zeb and Rajraj get their way, all this can change.
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That this or some permutation of it needs to be said again and again is astounding.
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I’m not sure its different. Vested.business interests.
Nassim Taleb (the guy who argues with presidents and terrorist symphatizers on Twitter alike) called out Trump by saying that breaking the alliance with Saudi Arabia would be enough for him to vote for Trump.
Coming from an Arab-American, that’s strong stuff. Trump and his staffers remained conspicuously silent on this.
Look, we both know you are not man enough to bet me on the outcome of the election, but try not to further the narrative of your little girlish ways by talking behind my back when I am not even involved in the conversation.
I think the fact Trump is sitting on the top of the GOP ticket, and things like Brexit happened might be speaking to where our disconnect is. Look at how well Sanders did too. People are tired of the same old shit in the US.
I think you might be surprised by the people happy to have him say Fuck NATO. Part of me is. If we stopped funding the EU’s defense, they’d actually have to, and the world would burn.
All this said, I still think Hillary will be better than Trump and would have been better than Obama, but I guess I’m not sold on this whole Putin/Trump thing being as cut and dry and I’m reading your posts is all.
Based on what you’ve said, there really isn’t a good candidate in American politics who would fit.
That being said, what Trump does bring to the table as all highly successful businessmen who employ thousands of people do is an eye for talent. Surrounding himself with talented, intelligent men is one thing we can be sure of based on his track record.
In the end Presidents are not military generals. They all must reply on their experts to help them navigate geopolitics.
Because they are the literal worst camp I’ve ever seen lol.
Or maybe, finally, a Pol isn’t going to waste time denouncing everything that has their name in it, particularly if they had nothing to do with it.
This is by far the most pathetic myth that has arisen among the Trump crowd. It’s common among idiots who find themselves in the infantilizing thrall of a wannabe authoritarian. Dear Leader is actually a mastermind. He sounds like a fucking idiot not because he is a fucking idiot, but because he wants to. He doesn’t have to speak like a child or turn into a mumbling incoherent know-nothing at the slightest hint of policy. He wants to. No doubt his loss in November will again be a calculated move on Dear Leader’so part.
Dupes and bumbling morons. You almost deserve it, a President Trump.